


Choose

by Musyc



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Character Study, Community: hermionebigbang, Confusion, Decisions, Gen, Hermione Granger - character, Memories, PostWar, inner thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-15
Updated: 2011-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-26 02:38:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/277745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Musyc/pseuds/Musyc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione, burdened with the memories of war and the mocking whispers of Slytherin's locket, knows she has a decision to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choose

Harry had given her a room in Grimmauld, a place to stay for as long as she needed. Molly had extended the same offer, telling her that she was as near a daughter to her as Ginny. Hermione thanked them both, appreciative and grateful for the consideration, but had refused. She needed a place of her own, she told them. After so many years in a boarding school's shared dorm, and after so many months on the run in a shared tent, she wanted a home that was hers, just hers. She knew everyone expected that she'd take a place in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley, but after a few weeks of searching, she let a flat in London.

Muggle London.

It wasn't something she could explain to many people, not something that everyone would understand. She was so proud of her abilities, had been proud of them ever since she first learned that she was a witch, and magic was an intense, internal part of her life. What she couldn't explain to them was that she needed to get away from it. She wasn't certain she wanted that to be part of her life any longer.

Hermione tugged her clothing on, shirt buttoned over her bare chest, tie loose around her neck. She fixed a cup of tea and took it to the padded chair by the window. Curled up with her feet tucked under her, she sipped at the tea and stared at the wall. Magic had been such a beautiful thing when she first discovered it, when she first learned that all the mysterious incidents of her childhood had been for a reason. She was a witch, a Muggle-born witch, and there was a whole society of which she knew nothing. She'd learned everything she could about her new world, and thought she'd finally found her place. It was only years later that she learned even magic couldn't solve everything, couldn't answer all the questions or solve all the problems.

Often, it seemed like magic only made more.

When she came across a circumstance that had two paths, magic and Muggle, she froze. When she ran into a situation that had two options, she panicked. Over time, she taught herself to react better, to think faster, and she chose magic more frequently, more readily. It felt as though something was changing in her - brightening, like a bonfire that had just found its fuel. As she grew older, she stopped fretting over her choices as much, stopped worrying with quite the intensity behind it. She worked with less confusion, more determination, letting wands and charms and spells and magic guide her into action.

Now she wondered if she had let it go too far. There were things she'd done in the past few years that she thought she might never have done had magic not entered her life. Sometimes it was almost as though everything existed in a world without consequences, without danger and hurt. From the simplest child's toy such as a Fanged Frisbee, to missing limbs and full body burns, it seemed as though any injury could be healed, any pain eased, with a wave of a wand or a swallow of a potion. She'd let that affect her thinking, affect her actions.

Hermione tugged on her tie, pulling the length of the silk taut. When she'd trapped Rita Skeeter in a jar, locked that reporter in Animagus form behind glass walls, she'd trusted in her magic and assumed she'd done the right thing. Then she'd put that jinx on the parchment for Dumbledore's Army, and Marietta had taken the brunt of it. She'd tricked Delores Umbridge into the Forbidden Forest and left her to the ministrations of the centaurs. All along, every time, she trusted that she was doing the right thing, that she was using her magic, her skills, for the greater good.

But had that truly been right, in the end? Had she really done the right thing, each and every time? None of it would have been possible, were it not for her abilities as a witch. Would she have done it, any of it, if she'd not turned to magic? If she'd let reasoning and rationale guide her, would she have done those things? She didn't know. She couldn't answer those questions, and that lack of answers bothered her.

She closed her eyes and sipped at her tea, ignoring that it had gone cold. No. That wasn't true. It wasn't the lack of answers. In those horrible months when she had been criss-crossing the countryside with Harry and Ron, in those long days and even longer nights when she'd been wearing Salazar Slytherin's locket, she'd earned plenty of answers.

Answers she didn't like. Answers she didn't want to face.

The locket had talked to her in her dreams, had showed her images of all the things she'd done, all the things that might have happened every time she'd used her magic for the right and good. Rita Skeeter, antenna limp and wings broken, pushing weakly with small clawed feet against the glass sides of the jar, as she suffocated over hours, trapped in the dark. Marietta, scarred and disfigured for life, bending her shoulders as the taunts and mockery grew louder, until she snapped her wand in half and dove into the Thames, where the silt of the river covered her shame. Delores Umbridge, her pink robes darkened black with blood, arms twisted and legs shattered from the hooves of a dozen centaurs, lying in the moss under an ancient tree while her life drained from her.

The locket whispered at the back of her skull, telling her all the consequences she'd never thought about, never considered. It hissed at her, sibilance burrowing into her mind and wrapping around her memories. _What sort of woman are you?_ it asked. _What sort of witch are you? How could you do these things and never think of the results, never contemplate the repercussions? How many people have you hurt, looking for the greater good?_

Hermione dropped her empty mug over the side of the chair and curled her legs up to her chest, her hair falling in tangles and knots around her limbs as she bent her head to her knees. _What makes you better than the ones you fight?_ the locket had asked her, purring darkly. _What makes you different, what makes you right? You cause as much pain, as much hurt. You think you're doing the proper thing, the right thing. But you're not. You're no better, no different. You should never have come into this world, should never have had a single brush with magic. Look what it's done to you._

 _Look what you've become._

 _Wicked witch._

Hermione wiped her eyes on the hem of her skirt, but each time she brushed away tears, more came. Everything she thought she'd been, everything she'd wanted to be, had changed. Would it only get worse? The next time Malfoy or someone like him called her by that vile insult, would she go beyond a shout and a slap? Would she draw her wand and slice him open? The next time a house-elf was mistreated or cuffed about, would she throw a hex or a curse?

She didn't know the answer. What was worse, she thought as she sniffed into her hair, she wasn't certain she wanted to know. Wasn't certain she wanted to face that part of herself, to acknowledge that darker core. Wasn't certain she wanted it to be near her friends, around her loved ones. If she let herself go, would she hurt them as well?

She didn't know. She hated not knowing. But she might hate _knowing_.

A circumstance with two paths, a situation with two options. She had to decide. Magic or Muggle.

She had to choose. Soon.


End file.
